Henrico Premier League cricket coming this spring

Henrico County will have its own cricket league starting this spring, with about six different competitive teams that ultimately will compete against leagues throughout Virginia.

Partners Vikas Kapila and Ashish Patel recognized the increased interest in cricket in Henrico County and decided to create the Henrico Premier League to fill the county's competitive cricket gap.

“There’s a good population of people playing cricket in Henrico County right now,” Kapila said.

In Henrico, about 60 teams are playing either leather ball cricket or tennis ball cricket, depending upon which day you ask, Kapila said. Each team has about 12 to 15 players.

“What we’re trying to do with the Henrico Premier League is to increase the quality of play of drafted players so that there are teams that bring in an audience to observe the game,” Kapila said.

Kapila and Patel hope to have about six teams within the league, each with their own sponsors and coaches, and plan to use the Henrico Parks and Recreation cricket courts to practice and compete, Kapila said.

“One owner has one team and another owner has another team,” Kapila said. “Next year, we are planning on auctioning off those teams, and the highest bidder will get the team.”

Once the teams have owners, tryouts will begin. Anyone who is capable and feels comfortable playing cricket is welcome to register, Patel said.

“It will not be limited to Henrico County,” Kapila said. “It will be from the whole state of Virginia, that way we will have different kinds of talent.”

After competing against teams with the Henrico league, Kapila is hopeful that teams will have the opportunity to compete against other teams throughout the state, including those from leagues in Hampton and Norfolk, Patel said.

“We want to create a champion league where the champions of these leagues play together to create the champions of champions,” Patel said.

League games will be held on the weekends starting in the late spring and running into the early fall, which is when the sport is commonly played, Kapila said.

“We are in the middle of working with the county to figure out the schedule of ground and pitch availability,” Patel said. “Once that schedule is picked up, we should be able to open up first the owner registration and then the player registration and then go for the player draft to start the tournament.”

To garner support and recognition for the new league, the league has held exhibition games. The latest was Sept. 30 at Deep Run Park and attracted more than 2,000 people, Patel said.

“We want to increase cricket sports tourism into Richmond and Henrico because we do see a lot of sports tourism through swimming, soccer and pickleball,” Kapila said.

A cricket stadium is being built in Chesterfield County, Patel said, so the traffic that will come to the area through that stadium can also interact with the teams that are a part of the Henrico league. And in a few years, Patel and Kapila hope that the teams in the league can play in big games like the ones that will be held in the new cricket stadium, Patel said.

“The cricket community is a pretty passionate, big community across the world, so we wanted to bring that momentum and culture to Richmond,” Kapila said.

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To learn more about the Henrico Premier League, email henricopremiereleague@gmail.com.